Re: [-empyre-] aesthetics of failure, microsound literature

[Glenn Bach <gbach@csulb.edu>]

In addition to Oval, Pole, et al, there is the veteran Yasunao Tone, 
whose "Solo for Wounded CD" won at the 2002 Ars Electronica.

I guess my question was: can this idea of failure go beyond technique? 
Or is that a sufficient enough basis for a body of work?  What about the 
implied or overt critique of the digital utopia?

G.

P.S.  Brendan, it's interesting that when you decide to work from 
recycled scrap, you are never really starting from scratch--you always 
have the built-in history of the materials you've discovered.  I think 
that's very interesting and mysterious.


http://www.lovely.com/bios/tone.html
Brendan Howell wrote:

> The best example I can think of is the German electronic musician Pole 
> (Stefan Betke).  He takes his name and concept from a broken Waldorf 4 
> Pole filter which produced a sort of clicky crackling sound.  The 
> resulting music is a kind of mix of dubby basslines, organ licks and 
> said clicky glitches looped up as the percussion.  The LP3 (the yellow 
> one) is my personal favorite, although I have not heard the latest LP.
>
> http://www.pole-music.com/content.html
>
> There's also Oval who take a lot of their samples from the sounds made 
> by playing scratched CDs.  It's a little harder to listen to but still 
> pretty interesting.
>
> There are more but that's all I can think of now.
>
> I have to say, I love this capitalist materialist empire in the respect 
> that it produces a rich body of junk (material and media) that I can 
> have for free or very little and with a bit of effort and occasional 
> cleverness, I can build something useful or beautiful.  It gives me the 
> feeling that I'm getting away with something.  Of course sometimes it 
> gets re-incorporated into the economy (witness vintage clothing) but the 
> very wastefulness of it insures that there will always be plenty of crap 
> for me to mine.
>
> -Brendan
>
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